Page 128 - Thai Heritage from Space_ebook

Cultural Heritage in Thailand

via Satellite Imagery

“Cultural Landscape” the heritage inscribed on the land

A cultural landscape is a man-made topography different from surrounding natural landscapes. It includes evidence
from vestiges of ancient dwelling and people’s activities in the past, showcasing the wisdom and knowledge of settlement
development of dwellers in the area. It contains the traces of ditches, earthen dykes, city walls, moats, ponds, reservoirs,
dams, and roads - the cultural heritage inscribed on the land.

The ancient communities of Thailand
Ancient communities can be studied from aerial photographs or satellite imagery by using cultural landscape
evidence on the visuals to locate geographical coordinates of the location of the ancient communities.
The survey has discovered evidence of cultural landscapes from aerial photographs indicating the locations of
1,200 ancient communities in Thailand. These were identified through aerial photographs indicating recording dates,
geographic coordinates, names of locations and administrative territory based on the topographic map L7017 with a
scale of 1:50,000. This map was prepared by Royal Thai Survey Department. In addition, provincial maps have
been collected in a booklet to make it convenient for the local areas, where ancient communities were situated.
The National Research Council granted this work ‘the 1992 Innovation Award’.

“City Wall and Moat Designs” - Unique Wisdom for the Founding of a City
The building of city walls and moats to surround residential and activity-sharing areas was the settlement
development. These city walls and moats were also used to determine boundaries, for protection, transportation, water
storage or irrigation. City walls discovered in Thailand are not the same. In fact, they are different in both their shapes
and the sizes of the surrounding areas. Some have a single moat whereas others possess multiple ones. Certain moats
are deep enough to retain water around the city, while some were dug at different levels fencing in the edges of the
hill top for that city defense. Many moats were connected to one another while some were built in complex layers of
circles. This evidence demonstrates cities expansion could contain a number of circles. This type of development could
be traced in many other important cities namely Lopburi and Chiang Mai.

“Construction Design and Geography” City walls and moats can be categorized into two types
on the basis of geographical areas.
Type 1): This type does not depend on geographical features. Some patterns are independent, but some have
geometric designs, for instance, circles, ellipses, polygons with rounded corners and straight lines with rounded ends.
Type 2): This type was designed according to the location of the city. “Muang Bon Noen Dome Kleu” is an
example of this type. The city walls and moats were built by digging ditches and dykes around “Noen Dome Kleu”
landscape where the surrounding swamp was ring-shaped. This construction pattern can be found only in the north
eastern region lowlands supported by thick layers of sedimentary rock salt intruding upward to form the geological
structure called salt dome and “Muang Pom Phukhao”. The city walls and moats were set on different levels surrounding
the edge of the hilltop for defense purposes.

“Layered City Design” includes Muang Phabphla in Phabphla sub-district, Huay Thalaeng district in Nakhon
Ratchasima. The city walls and moats were built in a layered pattern comprising deep moats for retaining water
encompassing the area at the foot of the hill, and triple moats were built in a pattern of straight-line edges surrounding
the same area. The layered design reflects people’s background knowledge in terms of city founding. Apparently, the
innermost part of the construction was built first, and surrounded the foot of the hill. Then the area was extended to
set up the second layer using a pre-historic design developed between 2,000 and 3,000 years ago. Later, the third layer
of the city walls and moats were built to extend the city with a straight-lined edge reflecting culture of that time.

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